JG Cully's writing blog about the Haldred Chronicles series of fantasy detective novels.

Monday, 18 March 2013

I hate having the cold :(

Unfortunately I have had the cold this past week on and off so haven't had a chance to write a proper blog update.However, progress is being made on the 2nd Novel, 2nd draft. I reached the halfway point on the 16th March and am continuing to write well. In between sneezing of course. I've also been reading the Writers and Artists Yearbook and its making a lot of sense. Starting to get a strategy for publishing together but its slow going.As a little treat, the short story I present to you this week is my Paradiso Fan Fiction competition entry from a couple of months back. I hope you all like, especially the Infinity the Game players. Hope you all manage to avoid the cold. I can advise against the experience!* * * * *

Friendly
Fire

By
Vedal Slayer

Marie-Ann, 1er Regiment de
Para-Commandos, stood up, reaching for the computer tablet secured on the
transport planes low ceiling. Long blond
hair, tied in twinned braided ponytails, cascaded down her back. Her sharp feline features frowned ever so
slightly as she unlocked the two security tabs that held the tablet in
place. She paused for a moment, green
eyes blinking. She let out an exasperated
sigh.

“They're called hips Jean-Paul, and you can
stop staring at them.”

She glanced over her shoulder, as the young
Jean-Paul rather lamely found the ceiling of the MX-47 assault transport
suddenly very interesting. The new
paratrooper was a youthful eighteen years old and evidently straight out of
boot camp. For a paratrooper he seemed
very wet behind the ears and despite excellent scores in parachuting and heavy
weapons use, Marie-Ann had her doubts as to whether he was the right kind of
soldier for the Ariadnian Expeditionary Force.

But needs must.

“Moi-du.” muttered Claude, seated
opposite the young man and shaking his head, doing nothing to mask his
amusement. Claude was the most veteran
of the three of them, two years on Marie-Ann's four year service. He was a big man, perhaps too big to be a
paratrooper. He had wide shoulders,
thick powerful muscles and a wicked sense of humour. He was the groups support gunner, cradling
his light machine-gun as they awaited the drop point.

Rolling her eyes, Marie-Ann retrieved the
tablet regardless and twisted to sit down again. As she activated the battered computer and
waited for the digital display to boot up, she glanced over again at
Jean-Paul. He was still managing to look
embarrassed behind his jump goggles.

“Were there no beautiful jeunes filles
at the training academy?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes madam, but...ah”

“But what?”

There was a long, awkward pause. Mercifully for Jean-Paul, Claude broke the
silence with typical directness.

“But none of them had as perfectly formed
an arse as yours, Madam Sergeant.”

Jean-Paul seemed to go bright red, while
Marie-Ann glared across at her partner.

“You know the rule. You get one per jump, that's it.”

Claude shrugged his huge shoulders with an
accompanying boyish grin, seemingly unaffected by Marie-Ann's demeanour. “That's why I made it a good one.”

“I'm surrounded by man-idiots.” muttered
Marie-Ann as the tablet came alive at last, the aged and scratched interface
screen lighting up. Immediately it
displayed the mission area overlaid by a 3D satellite geo-image.

“The coordinates command passed to us mean
we should be able to rendezvous with the patrol party relatively quickly. That's assuming we've been provided with
accurate maps this time.”

“Hmpt.
Lots of trees.”Claude said sagely, leaning over to look at the tablet
display. “Did our honoured hosts
remember we don't use the fancy jet pack toys?”

“The exact words used were 'be assured the
clearing will be large enough to allow for parachute drop'.” She cast both of them a sideways look. “The O-12 people use the word 'assured' far
too often for my liking. At least we're
not jumping into a fire fight this time, just a meet up with a standard combat
sweep.”

“Assume the LZ will be tight” Marie-Ann
said next, reaching above her to stow the tablet. “Keep good control of your chutes and a close
eye on your oxygen. Don't get dispersed,
we want to all land in one piece.
Understood?”

“Yes ma'am” replied the boys in unison.

“And Jean-Paul.” Marie-Ann eyed the new
recruit as she spoke, flicking her twinned ponytails back behind her head and
securing them with a hair clip.

“Ma'am?”

“If I catch you staring at my ass on the
way down...”

She locked him with her brokers-no-argument
stare and paused to allow him time to go red.

“I will eat your spleen.”

Claude leaned in, his expression one of
mock seriousness.

“She will too.” he stated truthfully.

* * * * *

“Not bad,” commented Marie-Ann as she kept
her rifle up, covering Jean-Paul who was busy pulling his pack and chute into
the safety of the clearings edge. “you
jump well.”

“Thank you ma'am.”

They had jumped successfully onto the O-12
cleared area. Their hosts had at least
got the location information right.
Around them the forest was awash with trees and creepers, the atmosphere
thick with moisture and unnaturally silent.

“I could almost forgive you for leering at
me on the way down. I do hope you
enjoyed the view.”

Marie-Ann was rewarded with another deeply
embarrassed expression from the young man, an expression that was all too
quickly becoming his trademark.

“Now, hand me your spleen.”

“Comms appear awfully silent
madam.”reported Claude, interrupting the two of them as he moved up to crouch
beside them. The cheekiness was gone,
replaced with the veteran soldier that Claude truly was.

“We should at least be getting background
chatter from other units.” Marie-Ann frowned.
“I don't like it.”

“Could be the forest?” Claude hazarded,
casting his eye round the seemingly endless greenly that encompassed them. “This planet is strange, even more so than home.”

Marie-Ann had to agree. Paradiso was alien, much more alien than Dawn
and that was saying something. The
clearing they had jumped into had only been cleared a few hours ago, some of
the trees still showing signs of chemical destruction. Yet it had still been hazardous. The lush forests here were voracious,
regaining the land they had lost with vigour.
The native species were openly hostile;
Marie-Ann had already crushed the head of a snake that had snapped at her as
she was clearing her chute .

The planet doesn't like us.

“Claude, take point, we'll proceed on
mission. I'll take the comms. Jean-Paul you'll take six.”

She glared at the young recruit and he had
the good sense to cower before her.

Satisfied, the three of them headed
cautiously into the deep jungle.

* * * * *

“What the hell is going on?” Marie-Ann
hissed to no one in particular, leaning up against the nearest tree for cover
and sighting down her rifle.

“I do not know madam,” said Claude next to
her, training his weapon likewise. “but
it sounds very much like our patrol is in contact and raising Merovingia brand
havoc.”

They had been moving through the jungle for
only ten minutes when the sounds of fighting had drifted through the dense
foliage; the whip crack of automatic weapons mixed with the tell-tale rumble of
explosions. It was not a good sign.

“Oui madam” said Claude. Immediately he rose from his position and was
bounding quickly through the thick jungle, making his way through the creepers
and trees toward the fighting. Marie-Ann
beckoned Jean-Paul to follow her, her posture hunched as the two of them took
the route at an angle to the source of the shooting.

“Time to go hunting.” she stated bluntly,
rechecking her rifle and flicking the fire selector to automatic. “And time for you to live up to your grenade
launcher scores Jean-Paul.”

“I will Madam.” stated the boy. Marie-Ann looked over to find the newbie
rechecking his weapon, winding the clockwork mechanism of his grenade launchers
circular magazine in preparation. His
reply had been very businesslike; she decided that was a good sign.

“Lets go.” she ordered.

* * * * *

“In position” Claude radioed 5 minutes
later. Perfect timing thought
Marie-Ann as she and Jean-Paul made it to their own starting position. What they saw brought back painful memories
of the corporate battles that had ravaged their own planet.

They had come out on a low ridge, over
looking a battle in progress below them.

The area was obviously a drop ship landing
site, though by the looks of it not one that had been recently used. The whole area was encompassed by thick
tree's and creepers, the buildings obvious only by their outlines amongst the
greenery. A battle was in full
swing. Tracer fire criss-crossed what
seemed to be an evenly matched fight between Ariadna troops and a Pan Oceania
squad. Even through the tree's and bushes
Marie-Ann could see the dark blue uniforms of several Metro's exchanging fire
with Fusiliers taking shelter in a bombed out and overgrown bunker. Nearby the bulky form of an Orc trooper,
braced by a tree trunk, was blazing away with his MULTI-rifle at a heavy
machine-gun Moblot position. Individual
or group duals were taking place all across the site but mostly around the
smoking remains of a dropship visible at the far end of the relatively clear
landing strip.

Here and there, bodies lay where they had
fallen, evidence of a battle that had been taking place for some time.

Marie-Ann took it all in, grim faced. Determination gripped her.

So much for friendly fire.

She pushed her comm-link.

“Cover us Claude, I'm going for the left
flank.”

“Acknowledged.”

Seconds later the familiar angry rattle of
a Ariadnian manufactured machine-gun echoed through the forest. With a hand signal Marie-Ann bid Jean-Paul to
follow her. They ran quickly, dodging
through the low hanging vines and tree trunks as Claude blazed a path in front
of them.

An Orc trooper emerged from the tree line
to their left, MULTI-rifle up and scanning for the source of the machine-gun
fire.

Marie-Ann fired a three round burst into
the giant armour suited figure, causing him to stagger back into the foliage,
his own return fire flying wide. She
dived for cover behind a thick tree trunk as Jean-Paul came up beside her. Sensibly, the boy had switched to his rifle,
his grenade launcher slung over his back.
She patted him on the shoulder, and signed to him their attack plan.

Three, two, one.

They both ducked round the tree and fired
at the same time from kneeling positions.
The Orc trooper, not expecting two attacks from different angles was
caught unawares. Both paratroopers
emptied a clip into him, bullets ricochetting off his armour plate. He staggered back before one of the bullets
hit a weak spot in his neck armour and tore out his throat. He collapsed back, gasping for breath with
sickening wet gurgles.

Marie-Ann wasted no time, bounding toward
the fallen enemy. She dropped her empty
magazine as she ran and had rammed home a fresh one by the time she covered the
distance to the fallen warrior. She kicked
the MULTI-rifle from the mans grasp as he brought it up in a last futile
gesture, before stamping on his already wounded neck. She heard the distinctive crack of bone and
the trooper lay still. Jean-Paul joined
her, having switched back to his grenade launcher. The boy's adrenaline was up now.

She patted him on the shoulder again,
pointing off to the left. The boy
nodded, moving up from his position and...

The bullet impacted through his shoulder,
spinning him round and rolling him onto the ground. Marie-Ann's weapon was aimed and firing half
a clip in the direction of the crack of the sniper shoot. Up a tree her bullets shredded the timber to
dust and caused something to flinch, its form translucent like water.

Croc

Wasting no time she was up from her crouch
and grabbing Jean-Paul by his backpack.
The boy was in pain, cursing through clinched teeth and trying to bring
his grenade launcher round to fire.
Marie-Ann fired another long burst one-handed in the direction of the
Croc. She must have succeeded in keeping
the snipers head down for no more deadly rounds came chasing her. She was able to drag Jean-Paul round behind
the tree they had previous used to ambush the Orc.

The boys breath was coming in short rasps
of obvious pain.

“Lie still.” she ordered, dropping her guns
empty magazine and reloading a third time, now more concerned as she cast
around for more enemies. Her hand went
to her comm-link again.

“Delta four this is Maverick six, I have
one man down, requesting medic.”

“I know.” said the Emergency 112 medic as
he leapt down beside Marie-Ann. He was
fortunate not to get a face full of rifle-butt.
She didn't bother to ask were the hell he had come from and just let the
man do his job.

“Watch yourself. He's up in the trees.”

“Not for long.” said the medic, nodding to
his right before he bent to the task of checking Jean-Paul. Marie-Ann frowned before looking to were the
medic had indicated. From the
undergrowth nearby rose the formidable form of a Moblot, carrying a primed
panzerfaust.

Their was a flash and hiss, then a thump as
the rocket hit the tree were the Croc trooper had been. A body fell with the shower of leaves.

Good shooting.

“Delta six to all Delta call signs. Enemy is falling back to a dropship. Let them go.
We'll deal with them later.”

“He's just letting the bastards get away?”
cursed Marie-Ann, looking to the medic for an explanation.

“Yes I am.” Said the Moblot coming up on
the three of them, dropping his panzerfaust as he approached. He evidently didn't fear any additional
sniper fire for his pose was relaxed.
“They didn't come here to fight us.
We just happened to interrupt their little party.”

He pointed across the clearing.

From the direction of the destroyed
dropship, Marie-Ann could see a Metro and a Chasseur hoisting a wounded man in
muddy work fatigues, his leg a bloody bandaged mess. He looked Asian, his uniform dark orange and
yellow.

“Yu Jing.” stated the Moblot bluntly. “Engineer by the looks of him. He should be able to tell us why this mess
happened.”

“Bastards.” muttered Marie-Ann, her
attention now returning to Jean-Paul.

The doctor had removed the boys jump
goggles and his face was contorted in pain.
He was very pale.

“How is he?”

“In pain, but stable.” Stated the
medic. “He's lucky, the bullet went
straight through him. For once we should
be thankful they use armour piercing rounds.”

Marie-Ann nodded. Losing a rookie on his first combat jump was
the height of bad luck.

At this point Claude appeared, coming upon
on them as the Ariadna forces regrouped.
In the distance, the sound of weapons fire had been replaced with that
of chopper engines; the extraction craft were inbound.

“Hell of a first day for the boy.”
commented Claude as he looked over the rookies wounded body.

“Doc says he's stable.” said
Marie-Ann. She looked up at the big man
and gave him a rare smile. “But your
right.”

“At least...I'll have a war wound.”
breathed Jean-Paul. Marie-Ann looked to
him in surprise, finding the boy looking up through his pained expression,
trying to smile through the discomfort and the effects of the medics meds.